ART Parkinson graduates to leading man on the big screen at the tender age of 14 in Kubo and the Two Strings.

The Irish actor, best known for playing ill-fated nobleman Rickon Stark in the TV series Game of Thrones, voices young hero Kubo in the new animated movie from the team behind stop-motion hits Coraline, ParaNorman and The Boxtrolls.

"I was doing Dracula Untold a couple of years ago now, and we were in the middle of filming when I got an email through for an audition," Parkinson tells Weekend.

"I looked over the script and studied the character and sent a voice memo over. I got a call back a few days later and eventually they told us I'd got the part.

"Now that it's all finished and I've seen it I'm very proud of it."

Charlize Theron attends the Cinema For Peace Gala 2016 during the 66th Berlinale International Film Festival on February 15, 2016 in Berlin, Germany.Gisela Schober

Parkinson, in his first animated role, plays Kubo, a scruffy young boy who lives in a small Japanese fishing village.

By day he entertains the local villagers with his stories and special ability to bring his characters to life through moving origami figures.

At night he cares for his mother, who slips in and out of trances that seem to be ruled by the moon. When she is lucid she tells him stories of his father's exploits as a Samurai warrior.

"Kubo is really parenting his mum in the beginning of the story," Parkinson says. "He's had to be a very disciplined person, but he is naturally quite caring in the way he takes care of his mum."

But when he accidentally reignites an old family vendetta, Kubo must solve the mystery of his fallen father and recover his magical suit of armour to defeat the spirits who plague him.

"The three things I really took away from the script and the film in general were the kindness of Kubo, his bravery and his forgiveness," Parkinson says.

"He's a storyteller and I'm a storyteller. The way he brings his characters to life, I think we're very alike."

Joining Kubo on his quest are his no-nonsense guardian Monkey (Charlize Theron) and the quixotic insect samurai Beetle (Matthew McConaughey).

Beetle, Kubo and Monkey set off on a promising path in the movie Kubo and The Two Strings.LAIKA / Focus Features

While Parkinson didn't get to work with McConaughey in the studio, he did get some time in front of the microphone with his other Oscar-winning co-star.

"Charlize is a very amazing actress. Whenever you're in the room she brings the character to life," he says.

"It was great to work off her and she was very maternal in the way she portrayed Monkey. It was all about learning how to put all my emotion into my voice and working with that."

While Parkinson describes his own origami skills as average at best, he did grow up with the Japanese art form.

"My father used to take his old bus tickets from London, which is where I grew up, and make swans out of them and leave them on the seats," he says. "Unfortunately I never really caught on to it (laughs)."

Like Coraline and ParaNorman, Kubo and the Two Strings weaves some dark themes into its central family story.

"The emotional core of the narrative is about a boy and his mother," director Travis Knight says.

"That connects with my own experiences. Like Kubo, I was a lonely kid, and my existence revolved around my mother. She was my closest friend, the defining relationship of my young life.

"This movie explores that time in our lives when those things began to shift, and then irrevocably change; when we learn a profound and melancholic truth that to love is to hurt. That's a hard truth, but it's a fundamental aspect of what it means to be human."

Kubo and the Two Strings also features the voices of Ralph Fiennes, George Takei, Brenda Vaccaro and Rooney Mara.